Imagine you are at the edge of the sea on a day when it is difficult to say where the land ends and the sea begins and where the sea ends and the sky begins. Sea kayaking lets you explore these and your own boundaries and broadens your horizons. Sea kayaking is the new mountaineering.

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Sea Fever

I have not posted for a while. This has been partly due to the poor weather but mainly due to a painful dislocation of my knee, trying to lift my kayak some time before Christmas. It has been hard not going down to the sea for such a long time. Last Saturday the forecast was for F3 gusting F4 NW winds so we convened at Seafield on the south Ayrshire coast with the intention of paddling down to Culzean Bay and back. When we arrived, there were white horses to the horizon and waves were breaking high into the air at the base of the Heads of Ayr. My handheld anemometer showed the wind was F5-F6. When Tony left his house, just up the road, the temperature was minus 6C. We didn't much like the look of this, but we were so desperate to get out again that we turned round and headed north to more sheltered waters off Largs, further up the Firth of Clyde.

Here the conditions were much more to our liking. A light F3 NW meant we were off...

...paddle sailing at 10km/hr into a 1.5km/hr adverse tide.

We were bound for the Little Cumbrae island which...

...lies between Largs and the mountains of Arran beyond.

We soon left the douce Victorian villas of Great Cumbrae behind and...